There is known, that dental hygiene devices, such as tooth brushes (mouthpieces) provide gingival stimulation and enhance the peripheral capillary dental circulation, and also conventional hand brushing dental hygiene practices are fairly efficient for cleaning smooth facial and lingual surfaces of the teeth because the bristle tips of a conventional toothbrush can readily access these broad surfaces. It is also known, that major incidences of tooth decay and of periodontal disease occur in interproximal areas such as crevices between adjacent teeth and the pits and fissures of the occlusal surfaces. Cleaning these areas with traditional hand brushing methods generally is unsatisfactory, with ineffective removal of residue and of dental plaque, and resulting in increased susceptibility to tooth decay and periodontal disease.
Some known techniques propose to solve these problems are powered brushes, in which the entire brush head is moved while water or another fluid is emitted from the brush head. Other prior art techniques are powered brushes in which the brush head has rotating tufts and/or longitudinal (reciprocating) movements of bristles, and liquid jet devices. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,142,723 describes a tooth cleaning apparatus having powered brush and spray and includes a housing that provides a manually deployable handle for the device and that houses a motor that drives both a brush agitating drive mechanism, and a liquid dispensing pump mechanism. The housing has a tool mount that interchangably mounts in operable relation with the drive mechanism and with the pump mechanism any one of a dental brush tool and a dental spray tool. The brush tool and the drive mechanism preferably are arranged to agitatingly drive two sets of brush elements and oppositely, preferably with back and forth rotation of individual brush tufts.
The motor is powered either by batteries mounted within the housing or from an external power source, has an output shaft a centered on the axis and mechanically coupled to rotate a beveled gear about the axis. The beveled gear is drivingly engaged with a pair of cranking bevel gears and. The cranking gears and are rotatable about a common axis, perpendicular to the axis, by way of shaft screws that mount each gear to a support frame that in turn is seated within the housing. The cranking gears 46 and 48 are spaced apart along the axis. A crank rod is pinned to the periphery of the cranking gear 46 and a similar crank rod is pinned to the cranking gear. Each crank rod and extends generally along the direction of axis and is rotatably fastened at its end remote from its respective cranking gear to one reciprocating rod and, respectively. The reciprocating rods extend side-by-side along the direction of axis and are axially slidable relative to the housing.
Such device is very complex, requires a liquid dispensing pump mechanism, and does not provide the possibility for multibrush use.
In some other known dental cleaning devices, the dental-jet device whose grip member comprises a control means in the form of an adjustment wheel. The adjustment wheel is connected to a rotatable valve body of a valve provided as fluid-flow control means. An amount of fluid which flows through the fluid channel in a given time interval, which fluid is supplied to the mouthpiece of the dental-jet device and is adequate for a normal cleaning operation, is adjustable by turning the valve body by means of the adjustment wheel in order to supply this amount of fluid. The amount of fluid is below a maximum possible flow and is selected by the user, is supplied to the mouthpiece of the dental-jet device. In order to increase the fluid supply to the mouthpiece after the fluid flow has been adjusted by means of the adjustment wheel, for example in order to remove very persistent residual food particles, the adjustment wheel on the grip member of the known dental-jet device should be rotated from a previously selected setting for a desired fluid flow to a setting for an increased fluid flow. As a result the previously selected setting of the adjustment wheel for the previously desired fluid flow adequate for a normal cleaning operation is lost. Moreover, in the known dental-jet device the fluid flow supplied to a mouthpiece cannot be increased beyond the maximum fluid flow dictated by the dimensioning of the fluid channel and the fluid-flow control means. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,697,784 a dental cleaning device is provided with a mouthpiece and with a grip member having a fluid channel and having a fluid-flow control device located on the brush body, which is adjustable an actuating member, which is movable between different actuating positions to change the amount of fluid supplied to the mouthpiece through the fluid channel, the grip member is provided with activatable parts for temporarily increasing the amount of fluid supplied to the mouthpiece while the instantaneous actuating position of the actuating member for the fluid-flow control device.
The grip member comprises a slide knob which is guided so as to be movable in the longitudinal direction of the grip member indicated by the arrow and in a direction opposite thereto, between an “off”-position and an “on”-position. When the slide knob 11 is in the “on”-position the water supply from the tube to the mouthpiece via the grip member is interrupted and when the slide knob is in its “on”-position water supply from the tube to the mouthpiece via the grip member is possible. A push-button included in the slide knob has a part which points away from the grip member and traverses the slide knob. The grip member of the dental-jet device has an elongate sleeve-shaped plastic housing comprising a first housing section, situated nearest a mouthpiece, and a second housing section, whose end adjoins the end of the first housing section at the location of the flexible adjustment ring. At its free end the first housing section has an opening through which the interior of an inner tubular housing portion is accessible. A mouthpiece is inserted into the tubular housing portion through the opening to couple this mouthpiece to the grip member in a fluid-transmitting manner. At its free end the second housing section has a bottom. The tubular portion of the first housing section is adjoined by a plastic tubular coupling member located in the first housing section and having a comparatively thick-walled portion into which the end of a mouthpiece can be introduced. At the location of the comparatively thick-walled portion a wire spring is arranged having a circular shape over an angle of substantially 270 degree and having straight end portions which extend substantially parallel to one another and towards the interior of the circular spring. The two spring ends hold a mouthpiece onto the grip member in that the spring ends engage a groove in the mouthpiece 6. The end of a mouthpiece held by means of the spring then lies against a sealing ring fitted in the comparatively thick-walled portion of the coupling member.
This device is complex too and expensive, and is intended for one tooth brush only.
Thus, there is a great need in the art for the improved family oriented multibrush tooth cleaning apparatus with a spray (fluid stream, jet), providing convenient, economical and effective cleaning of the teeth with the flushing away the plaque debris.